


Some Things Stay Sweet Forever

by n_a_feathers



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: M/M, Modern Gladiator AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 01:06:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17478386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/n_a_feathers/pseuds/n_a_feathers
Summary: Everyone fights at first.Len certainly had. Men in tactical dress – faceless bodies – had dragged him through sterile corridors, and he’d kicked and screamed and cursed the bastards for capturing him the whole way. The cuffs around his wrists dampened his meta-powers but, if they hadn’t, he would have happily killed them all.He hadn’t gone easily and he was proud of that. A lot had.Mick’s a fighter, too. Len likes that about him.The kid is different, though. He doesn’t fight – which might have something to do with the fact that he’s strapped to a hospital trolley, hooked up to an IV and dead to the world.





	Some Things Stay Sweet Forever

 

 

Everyone fights at first.

 

Len certainly had. Men in tactical dress – faceless bodies – had dragged him through sterile corridors, and he’d kicked and screamed and cursed the bastards for capturing him the whole way. The cuffs around his wrists dampened his meta-powers but, if they hadn’t, he would have happily killed them all. 

 

He hadn’t gone easily and he was proud of that. A lot had. They were idiots. Probably dead now, too.

 

The particle accelerator had been the start of it – though none of them knew it at the time. How could they? It shouldn’t have been more than a one-off tragedy.

 

Afterwards, everything had seemed normal for a while.  The city had mourned its losses and rebuilt, leaving STAR Labs where it stood, crumbling in upon itself, a testament to man’s hubris. It was a month or so later that the real fallout of the explosion became apparent.

 

It started with a massive blast just outside the metro terminal in New Brighton. When the smoke cleared and the firefighters moved in to put out the flames – the paramedics following optimistically behind them – they found a teenage girl at the epicentre of the blast. She was singed but completely unharmed.

 

It was declared a miracle.

 

Bette Sans Souci was on the cover of every newspaper the next day, wrapped in a blanket and flanked by firemen, wide-eyed with an artistic smudge of ash across one cheek. Her parents had perished in the blast but somehow she’d survived. People ate it up.

 

When she was in the middle of another explosion the next week, completely unharmed again, the reception was slightly less positive. When it became public she’d caused both explosions, people were fit to riot.

 

It went downhill quickly after that.

 

People who found themselves presenting with powers were given only one option: identify yourself to your local government or police. That didn’t particularly appeal to Len, especially with the warrants out for his arrest anyway, so, one morning, 47 days after the initial particle accelerator explosion, when he found himself turning into a human icicle under his morning shower, he closed up every window and locked himself away until he was able to control and conceal his newfound abilities.

 

He’d seen what happened to the people who volunteered themselves to the authorities. Scientists quickly identified the cause of the powers in what they termed a meta-gene. Present in about 3% of the population, the energy created and dispersed by the particle accelerator explosion had activated this gene in people in a close enough proximity. These people became known as meta-humans.

 

Science wasn’t advanced enough to alter people’s genes so the government resorted to a hack and slash method to quell the possibility of further damage caused by these people. Len wasn’t entirely sure what the procedure itself was that mentally blocked people from their powers, but he’d seen with his own eyes that the results of it appeared suspiciously like a badly done lobotomy. Len wasn’t letting that happen to him.

 

But ice powers were too much of a boon not to use. He could take a safe’s mechanism down to absolute zero and shatter it easily; he could freeze anyone who looked like they had a hero complex with a flick of his wrist; and he could cool down the air around him so low that bullets would fall out of the air. The cops didn’t like that. Not at all.

 

Len was used to having the CCPD constantly on his tail. That was fine, it was a fun game of cat and mouse and he was good at it. But having powers made him a bigger target, painted a big red bull’s eye on his back that attracted the kind of heat even he wasn’t comfortable with. Now he had not only the CCPD, but all the resources of the US government aimed at him too.

 

At that stage the wise choice would have been to hole up somewhere until they forgot about him or move halfway across the globe where no one would care if he could pull ice from thin air. He could have dined out on that trick anywhere in the world – besides meta-hating America, that is.

 

But the lure of a big score had been too tempting and so he ended up getting himself caught.

 

At least it hadn’t been the CCPD or the feds who got him; at least he didn’t have that shame hanging over his head. No, it had been some freelance meta-hunters who’d caught him, coming in hard and fast and catching him off guard. He hadn’t been expecting them and they’d tranq-ed him before he even had a chance to defend himself. They brought him out in front of a crowd with a pair of power-dampening handcuffs on, and he snarled and fought and put on a good show for them. $1.9 million the syndicate had paid for him. Not too shabby for a 40-year old with no real life skills.

 

Still, he’d fought them. Tooth and nail until the last moment. Down winding corridors he was soon disorientated by and past so many locked doors he lost count. He fought the whole way.

 

As soon as he crossed the entrance into the holding cells though, all that fight went away. His mind suddenly lost all its aggression and anger. They uncuffed him and he knew he should take that opportunity to kill them and escape but it was like the switch to get him to start that series of actions was swaddled in cotton wool and locked up behind 3 inch steel. He drew ice to his hand just to prove he could, and then… nothing. He let it melt away.

 

Len has watched it happen dozens of times during his months in the pit, the influence of the complacency field, but it never ceases to amaze him. They don’t even bother with cameras in the cells, so sure of their technological muzzle are they. One day, Len hopes, that little demarcation won’t make a difference and that’s the day he gets out of here.

 

He’s eventually given a name and a costume. Both are terrible but it’s not like he has a say in it.

 

And then they make him fight.

 

Turns out he’s good at it, too. That time he took to figure out his powers gives him a one-up on all the idiots who outed themselves as soon as the meta-gene activated and were thrown into this with no experience.

 

Mostly they don’t get him to kill his opponents. Waste of an asset and all that.

 

Mostly.

 

As the gladiator business expands, Len gets stuck with a roommate: Mick Rory. A bit of a hot head but loyal to a fault. They’d met over the years during stints in prison and on jobs, so it’s not so hard to get along.

 

Mick’s a fighter, too. Len likes that about him.

 

The kid is different, though. He doesn’t fight – which might have something to do with the fact that he’s strapped to a hospital trolley, hooked up to an IV and dead to the world.

 

They wheel him in one afternoon as Len and Mick watch on in confusion.

 

“Look after him,” the guard orders before he leaves.

 

“We’re not fucking nurses,” Mick says and under the influence of the complacency field it comes out sounding like a pleasant greeting.

 

It quickly becomes apparent that the only reason the kid was dumped in their room is that the guards hadn’t wanted to look after him themselves. Barely a couple of hours after he arrives in Len and Mick’s cell, he starts shaking. He’s strapped down so he’s in no danger of falling to the ground but Len still moves to check on him and steady the trolley. He doesn’t know much first aid but he puts his fingers to the kid’s throat. There’s a hum there, like the impossibly fast beating of a hummingbird’s wings, but he can’t catch a pulse.

 

That’s about when the kid starts sparking. Len reels back. Mick gets zapped first and out in the arena that would make him lose his temper but in here he just looks at the slight burn mark on his arm with mild interest. Len pulls up a shield of ice to protect them both and they shelter behind it for the few minutes the light show lasts.

 

When the convulsions stop, Len and Mick approach the kid warily. From where they’d been hiding they could see the soft rise and fall of his chest with every inhale and exhale but Len needs to know. Under his fingers he feels that same thrumming, only slightly less frantic, but still nowhere near an ordinary pulse.

 

The guard visits later that day to bring them their dinner and Len’s greeting is: “You’re an arsehole.”

 

“Got a little shock, did you?” asks the guard, laughing. He hands them their plates: meat and three vegetable. When you’re making your owners millions in gambling profit, you get fed moderately well. Better than prison food for sure.

 

The guard checks the kid over enough to make sure he’s still alive, but that’s about as thorough as his examination gets.

 

Len goes and stands behind him, watches as he takes the kid’s pulse and lifts up his eyelid. The kid’s lips are parted and his chest rises and falls, so steady now Len could keep time by it. He just looks like he’s asleep. “What’s his deal?”

 

“Electric powers or something,” the guard answers. “Been comatose since the particle accelerator explosion.”

 

The guard finishes up his examination. He’s heading out the door when Mick pipes up unexpectedly. “What’s his name?”

 

The guard turns in the doorway with a dopey, full-bodied shrug. “No clue,” he says and then he’s gone.

 

With nothing else to do during the days, Mick and Len soon find themselves obsessed with the kid’s care. The guards bring them supplies but it’s them who are changing the bags that feed him liquids and nutrients, and the one his urine collects in. In the morning they brush his hair and his teeth and wipe down his body with a damp cloth. In essence, they become the nurses Mick had said they weren’t.

 

Before they’re taken out to fight, they bid him farewell and when they come back, bruised and bloody, they talk to him as they patch each other up. It used to be just Len and Mick against the world, and now it’s Len and Mick and the kid. If he has a name, they don’t know it and the guards only talk to bark orders so they can’t get it out of them.

 

Mick calls Len ‘boss’, Len calls Mick ‘partner’ and when they talk to their roommate, they both call him ‘kid’. It works for them.

 

 

***

 

 

When they win – and they win most of the time – they’re given beer. Len would prefer to see even a fraction of the money that’s being made off of their fights by the syndicate but he has to admit, an ice cold beer is pretty good too. Once they’ve patched up any scrapes they got during the fight, he and Mick lounge around their cell and drink. It’s almost like being back at Saints and Sinners.

 

Except for the coma patient in the corner.

 

Then again, maybe not so different.

 

“He’s pretty.”

 

Len’s eyes flick to the kid. Mick’s comment catches him only slightly off guard. After all, he’s had the exact same thought. He _is_ pretty; long lashes, long legs, a quirk to his lips that Len reckons means he’s got a nice smile. He’s slim, built like a runner. No excess of bulk but a hint of power in the lithe muscles of his arms and legs. Perhaps it makes him a bad person (who’s he kidding, he is a bad person), but some weeks Len lets the kid’s stubble grow out for a few days. He likes the way it looks.

 

Nevertheless, Len hums noncommittally and takes another swallow of his beer. Mick’s not really looking for an answer anyway. Len’s got an ache in his ribs where he took a metal fist to the chest and the slight buzz the beer gives him makes him forget about it.

 

Mick groans and rubs at his face. “Fuck, I miss being horny.”

 

Len can’t tell if that’s a non sequitur or the two statements are related. In some ways he knows Mick well. Out in the arena they move together like choreographed dancers, their contrasting powers and personalities like two halves of a whole. After months of working with the man, Len trusts him implicitly with his life. But sometimes, when they’re in their room and there’s no danger to worry about, his partner’s mind makes random jumps in logic that Len’s learnt not to take at face value.

 

“Feels like forever since I jerked it.”

 

At least as long as they’ve been locked up here, Len thinks idly. He’d know if his cellmate had been up to anything; they’re never apart. The complacency field takes away all of that: the anger, the horniness, the highs of happiness and the lows of sadness. It replaces it all with a middling nothingness.

 

Mick is looking at him now and if they’d been on the outside and free Len might have reached down and cupped his dick through his pants, seen where that got them. He knows he likes the look of Mick, knows he’d like to see how all that muscle and brawn could be put to use. He knows this because that’s what he feels when they’re out in the arena. Flooded with adrenaline, he’d like nothing more than to fuck or be fucked by Mick.

 

That knowledge is still with him now but it’s like being on the other side of a two-way interrogation mirror to it. The lust is something removed from him, like a tumour that’s been cut out and put in a jar for him to look at, even though he knows it’s simultaneously still inside of him.

 

He could try to act on it, but he reckons the result would be pretty demoralising.

 

Even if Mick was interested, neither of them could get it up in this room.

 

Len swigs the last of his drink and contemplates the empty bottle in his hand. He should throw it at the wall or maybe even at the guard who pops his head in every now and again. He knows that’s something he would do, if he wasn’t collared by the complacency field. There’s a lot of things he’d do if he wasn’t under its influence.

 

He places his bottle carefully on the floor and reaches for another, groaning as the action makes the pain in his ribs twinge.

 

 

***

 

 

Len and Mick are playing a game of cards when the kid bolts upright on his bed. Len turns just in time to see the panic in the kid’s eyes get strangled by the complacency field but it doesn’t stop him beginning to yank at the cords attached to him in an abnormally unruffled manner.

 

“Slow down, kid,” says Len, trying to keep his voice calm as he saunters over to the trolley. He doesn’t want to add to the fear the kid isn’t allowed to feel, “don’t pull those.”

 

It takes him that short walk to come to terms with the fact that he hadn’t ever expected the kid to wake up and that he doesn’t know what he feels about this new development. He and Mick have spent months caring for their ward but now that he’s awake, the syndicate is going to throw him out into the arena like a piece of meat for the wolves to fight over. Maybe they should have just smothered him with a pillow in his sleep and been done with it.

 

“Where am I?” The kid is looking around constantly, panic locked securely behind his eyes, and he’s still trying to pull the lines out of himself.

 

His voice is hoarse but it’s just as pretty as Len imagined.

 

Mick stalks over and pushes him back onto his back with one big hand on his chest. “Cut it out.”

 

That does the job. The kid stills instantly. Mick’s an intimidating figure to anyone who doesn’t know him like Len does. Even before the particle explosion Mick had had a little too much interest in fire. Len had heard in prison that he’d burnt down his house when he was still only a teenager, his parents still inside.

 

Over a couple of beers and after a particularly exhausting fight he’d admitted to Len that his mania had got the better of him during a heist only a month before the particle accelerator explosion and he’d been caught in the flames. He’d jumped out of an ambulance en route to the hospital afterwards, his body and mind burning. He drank through the pain and somehow managed not to die. It left him with burns all up his arms and across him chest and looking a bit like Freddy Krueger on a good day. When they’re fighting side by side in the arena, Len thrills to the rough scrape of that skin over his own on the rare occasion they touch. With the heat of battle warming his veins, he’d like to touch more. It all goes away once they’re back in their room, though.

 

Knowing Mick will be able to stop the kid hurting himself, Len heads to the door and yells into the corridor, “We need a doctor in here.”

 

The guard looks up from where he’s been playing on his phone. There’s no responding urgency when he asks, “What’s going on, Snart?”

 

“The kid’s awake. We need to get the lines and catheter out of him. Mick and I don’t have the first idea how all that shit works.”

 

“I’ll see what I can do,” the guard says.

 

Len doesn’t doubt that a doctor will eventually show up – he’s always there at the same time every week for the kid’s regular examination – but Len feels the prick of anger in his gut, as much as he’s allowed under the influence of the complacency field, and he tells the guard, “You’d better,” in as threatening a tone as he can muster.

 

The guard lumbers off eventually – still not fast enough for Len’s liking – so he heads back into the room to find the kid still on his trolley with Mick hovering over him. “How’s it going?”

 

“He’s got a lot of questions.”

 

“Of course he does.” Len drags a chair over to the bedside. “What do you remember?”

 

“I was at the precinct, I was working…” The kid’s head shoots up. “There was an explosion! The particle accelerator!”

 

“That’s right,” Len drawls in what he hopes is a calming tone. “STAR Labs went boom and a few special people” –he makes a circular gesture with his hand to indicate the three of them— “got superpowers. The government rounded up and lobotomised half of them, and the other half got caught by a shady fighting ring and ended up here in the thunder dome.”

 

The kid’s eyes look like they’re about to pop out of his head.

 

“Who are you?”

 

“I’m Leonard Snart, but you can call me Len.” He points a thumb in Mick’s direction. “This is my partner, Mick Rory.”

 

“Partner?” The kid echoes questioningly.

 

“Partner in crime,” Mick supplies. It’s true but if Mick and Len were free again, Len thinks it might not have been the whole story.

 

“Like--?”

 

“Like actual criminals,” Len answers, having no desire to dance around the topic of their occupation before the particle explosion. Better to lay all their cards down on the table at once. “And what’s your name, kid?”

 

“Barry. Barry Allen.”

 

“Barry,” Len tests the name out, enjoying the way his lips are forced into a half-smile, half-scowl on the last syllable. Mick nods his head approvingly.

 

“Listen, kid.” Barry’s still pretty disorientated but they need him to have all the facts before the guards finally do their job and get someone in here. The only thing that’s kept Len and Mick alive and relatively unhurt as long as they have is Len’s almost obsessive need to be as pre-warned and prepared as possible. “They’re going to make you fight.”

 

“Fight?” The kid – Barry, Len reminds himself – looks bewildered and Len spares only a moment to be sorry for him. He wonders what kind of cushy middle-class life he came from. “But I don’t know how to fight.”

 

“Doesn’t matter. You’ve got powers. You’re going to have to learn to use them – and quickly. These people are not on your side. They’ll feed you and look after you but they’re just protecting their investment. They don’t give a single fuck about what you think or feel.”

 

“They can’t get away with this,” Barry protests, his voice filled with righteous indignation. Must be nice, Len muses, to come from a background where you’re so sure in your rights and safety. In contrast, both he and Mick acclimatised to the new world order fairly smoothly and without question. “It’s not legal. We have rights!”

 

Len inexplicably feels like an enormous prick having to wake the kid up to the realities of the world; it feels like breaking the heart of a child who still believes wholeheartedly in Santa with the harsh truth. Someone has to do it, though, or he isn’t going to last a week in this place. “Kid, as far as the American government’s concerned, we’re not human anymore.”

 

Barry sits back on the stretcher and then there’s silence for a while as he mulls that over. He’s drawn back into himself, as still as he ever was laid out in the coma, his head hung low between his shoulders. Len wants to touch for no other reason than to offer comfort but, although Len has had Barry in his life for four months, Barry has known Len for all of a few minutes and Len imagines the gesture would be more upsetting than anything.

 

When Barry looks up, some of the panic has fled from behind his eyes, replaced by resolve.

 

“Show me.”

 

Mick’s eyes narrow. “What?”

 

Len has a feeling he knows what Barry means, though. After months of learning him physically, Len’s now starting to get a feel for Barry’s mind. He’s the questioning type, always pushing, always wanting to know more, wanting to know the who, the what, the when, the why and the how. As someone who likes to have all his bases covered, Len appreciates that.

 

“Show me what you can do,” Barry answers, and it’s exactly what Len expected. “Show me why they would do this.”

 

Len and Mick exchange a look and then prepare themselves. Mick’s arms and torso are suddenly engulfed in flames, like a lit match thrown onto gasoline-soaked dry wood, but Len’s powers come on a little slower, ice creeping along his skin, amassing into great clumps until he’s gloved from his upper arms to his fingertips in jagged shards. It’s easy to call his powers to him, even in this room. They’re so completely a part of him now; it’s like breathing. Using them to escape like he knows he should is a whole other issue though.

 

Barry’s arm moves and Len catches the twitch of his fingers as he reels in the instinct to touch. Coming into contact with Mick would end disastrously so Len lets his ice dissipate until he’s no more frosty than the inside of a freezer and closes the gap between himself and Barry’s stretcher. He nods his permission.

 

Barry is cautious, ghosting his fingers over the chill that clings around Len before daring to touch.  And how strange to be touched with wonder and curiosity. How strange to be touched at all. Mick certainly isn’t touchy-feely and the doctors keep as far away from them as they can. It’s probably at least seven months since anyone has laid a hand on Len except to punch him.

 

Can Len be blamed then if he leans into the touch, hoping it will linger?

 

“Do my family know I’m here?” asks Barry as his fingers leave melted trails in the hoarfrost over Len’s arm, the skin of his own erupting in goosebumps being so close to Len’s chill. Len can’t help but trace those same paths with his eyes, feeling enraptured by the warmth that lingers even after Barry has gone.

 

“Doubtful.”

 

Barry’s eyes flick up from his wandering fingers, bringing Len’s along with them. He has green eyes, flecked through with hints of gold, and Len is enamoured. “How long have I been here?”

 

“Four months.”

 

Len can feel Mick’s gaze trained on them, ever attentive, and his silence speaks volumes. Len should probably look away or at least be a little less obvious but he enjoys Barry’s eyes on him, enjoys looking back. He hasn’t had this in a long time.

 

“And how long before that was the explosion?”

 

“Five.”

 

Barry’s questions and Len’s answers have taken on a rhythmic quality. Between that and Barry’s soft touch on his arm, his eyes on Len’s, it’s almost too much. Len feels himself being lulled into a real sense of calm, so much different to the oppressive thing the complacency fields suffocates him with.

 

“How long have you been here?”

 

“Six and a bit.”

 

“Six,” Mick cuts in and Barry jumps a little, the tension between him and Len cut like a taught rope. Barry looks at Mick then, and although Len regrets the loss of attention, he drinks in the sight of Barry surveying Mick’s body, reading the tell-tale signs of their life here. At first glance they’re both healthy – certainly not starved for food nor lacking in medical care if they want it. A deeper look reveals the truth of their situation.

 

They heal slightly faster than humans, but their fight from a few days ago is still visible on their bodies. Len prefers to keep covered up so he’s not quite so obvious, but Mick favours tank tops that reveal broad expanses of skin along his chest and arms. He doesn’t feel the cold at all.

 

Apart from the scars that predate their meta powers, Mick is currently sporting some decent sized bruises from where Weather Wizard caught him unawares with hailstones and some cuts that are just beginning to scab off thanks to Captain Boomerang.

 

Len winces internally every time he has to call the metas by their syndicate-assigned names but there’s no way of knowing who they actually are underneath the masks. It’s not like the syndicate encourages fraternising – except for whatever this little room share situation is they’ve put Len, Mick and Barry in.

 

Barry takes in Mick’s injuries and Len can read his desire to touch in his eyes. He’s a tactile person, that much is obvious, but Mick wouldn’t appreciate being touched so soon and so casually so Len shakes his head almost imperceptibly and Barry seems to get the hint.

 

“And they’ve made you fight?”

 

He turns away and really takes in the room around them. Not that there’s much to see: two cots, the stretcher he’s on, some seats around a card table and a washroom partitioned off in the back corner. Sometimes they’ll be given things to keep them entertained: movies, music, books, weights. The more they win, the more obliging the guards are with their requests.

 

Len shrugs. “It’s not so bad.”

 

Barry pulls at the blanket he’d been covered with, manipulating it between his fingers. Despite the coma, he seems as active and with it as Len and Mick are. That’s surprising. Not that Len knows a lot about comas (or anything at all, except what he’s seen on TV shows, and god knows that was probably all false), but he’d expected impaired speech, clumsiness, more confusion – anything to acknowledge that the kid had been living hooked up to machines for nine months. It doesn’t seem right for him to bounce back so quickly. Maybe it’s a meta thing. It’s probably a meta thing.

 

“Who’s waiting for you on the outside?” Barry asks and it’s almost shy.

 

“My sister,” Len answers and feels the usual tightening of his chest as he thinks of Lisa. He’d never had a chance to tell her about his powers and for all he knows, she could think he’s dead. Probably not, though. Len doesn’t doubt that the people he and Lisa ran with weren’t above wagering on meta human slave fights. Surely someone would have seen through his bullshit costume and passed the information along to her. Maybe she’s been in the crowd as they fought. He’s surprised to find that that thought doesn’t upset him. He fights well; in some ways, he hopes she has seen him. She’d be proud of the way he’s survived.

 

He hopes against all hope, though, that she doesn’t have the meta gene too.

 

Barry looks at him with sympathy and despite his good intentions, it makes Len’s skin crawl. Sympathy never did anyone any good. It wouldn’t get them out of this place or out of their shitty situation. Perhaps he scowls because Barry turns away.

 

“Mick?” he asks.

 

Mick seems surprised to be asked and he straightens up from where he’d slumped against the wall. “No one,” he answers and because Len knows the story there, he also knows that for Mick that’s not a bad thing. Same as it wouldn’t be a bad thing if his own father would finally kick the bucket. But Barry comes from a very different kind of background and Len can read the sadness in his face to think that someone could have no one in the world who would note their disappearance. Once again it’s unneeded sympathy and, unlike Len, it washes over Mick like summer rain, barely noticed. “What about you?”

 

“My dad and sister. My other dad – my real dad – too, I guess.”

 

That’s an interesting statement and against the picture Len has been building of Barry so far. His beliefs and reactions haven’t exactly screamed ‘broken home’. Len’s just about to ask about it when Mick pipes up.

 

“No girlfriend?”

 

“No.”

 

“Boyfriend?”

 

“No.”

 

Len is torn between wanting to kiss Mick and wanting to kill him. On one hand, at least he knows the kid is single now. On the other, he’s only just woken up from a nine month coma and Mick is coming on a little too strong.

 

Maybe he’s the only one who notices that, though. Barry doesn’t seem nonplussed by the question and maybe that’s just how kids are these days. He flexes his hands in front of his face and then fists one hand into his shirt, above his heart.

 

“Why can’t I… feel?” he asks, his eyes beseeching.

 

Len lets his control slip for a moment and squeezes Barry’s shoulder. He leans into the contact like Len knew he would. “It’s some kind of field they’ve got over the cells. Stops you getting too angry or too worried. Keeps you complacent. Keeps you from trying to escape.”

 

“You’ve been here over six months?” Barry clarifies.

 

“Yes.”

 

“And you’ve fought?”

 

Len knows he doesn’t mean out in the stadium.

 

“Yes.”

 

Barry goes silent then and Len and Mick leave him to his thoughts.

 

The doctor comes eventually. He looks Barry over like he’s looking over a prized racehorse, even going so far as to have him open his mouth and inspect his teeth. Len and Mick bristle in the corner, full of unrealised indignation. Barry’s given the all clear for battle, though, and Len supposes that’s all that matters to these people.

 

They spend the rest of the day trying to help Barry gain control of his electricity powers but it’s a losing battle. There’s some kind of disconnect there and Barry can’t even summon lightning to his hands much less harness and direct it at an opponent like Mick and Len can do with their fire and ice. Asleep, he’d summoned lightning storms; awake, he can’t even strike a spark.

 

At some point a guard gets rid of the hospital trolley and replaces it with another cot for their room. After that, dinner is brought. They’ve come to judge the hours of the day by the arrival of meals and the turning off and on of the lights.

 

Barry eats ravenously and eyes off Mick and Len’s food when he’s done. They each give him something off of their own plate but he still looks forlorn afterwards. Len reminds himself to talk to the guards about getting the kid bigger portions. He’ll phrase it in ways they’ll understand: profits and losses. If the kid hasn’t got any energy, he’s not going to be any good in a fight. Little will they know that it’s the fight out of here Len will be building him up for.

 

“So I’ve been here four months…” Barry says, peeling the lid off today’s dessert of custard, “how long have I been in this room?”

 

“The whole time.”

 

Barry gapes, spoon halfway to his mouth. “You mean they just stuck me in the corner? Why didn’t they keep me in a med bay or something?”

 

Mick shrugs. “Guess they thought you weren’t going to survive. The guards were too shit scared to come near you.”

 

“Then who…?”

 

“Us.”

 

Barry takes a moment to think about that. “Why?” he asks warily. Len can see the suspicion in his eyes that he’s trying his best to hide. Barry knows they’re criminals – they’d admitted that much themselves right at the start – with all the stigma that entails.  It’s so far from what he’s thinking though. Len can’t even explain to himself why they’d done what they had. The kid had just been there, helpless in the corner of their room, and the guards didn’t care.

 

“Why not?” is the best answer he can come up with at short notice and without too much introspection.

 

“S’not like there’s anything else to do around here,” adds Mick.

 

“Thank you,” says Barry and he ducks his head over his empty dessert container. His eyes are dewy when he looks back up, his little attack of sentiment strangled equally by his self-control and the complacency field.

 

“Don’t mention it,” Len says and hands his dessert to Barry. He doesn’t like sweet things that much anyway.

 

 

***

 

 

Len never realised how little he and Mick spoke until Barry is there filling up that silence with his nervous chatter. He offers information about himself and his life with guileless enthusiasm and, despite himself, Len eats it up. In some regards they’re not so different: dead mum, imprisoned dad. That’s about where the similarities end though.

 

Barry’s dad might not even be guilty of what he was charged with and Barry ended up with friends of the family who happily took him into their home and treated him like one of their own.

 

Part of Len thinks he should be angry at having this new presence in his and Mick’s room who won’t shut up about the almost perfect life he had before the particle accelerator explosion put him into a coma. Instead, he just finds himself charmed.

 

He and Mick interject occasionally with comments and questions but Barry is mostly happy to chug along under his own steam, not at all disconcerted by the criminals he’s been imprisoned with.

 

 

***

 

 

The next time Len and Mick come back from the arena, bruised and bloody, Barry’s there to patch them up. He still hasn’t got the slightest control over his powers which is probably why he was spared going out there with them.

 

After looking after the worst of Mick’s wounds, Barry takes the washcloth out of Len’s hands and finishes wiping the blood from his face. That bitch Amunet had nicked his forehead with her metal projectiles before he got an ice shield up and it had bled constantly the whole time in that annoying way facial cuts always did. It’s sluggish now, though, and he won’t have to worry about it once Barry gets a bandage on it.

 

Barry’s touch is gentle as he wipes at the blood matted in Len’s eyebrow. As close as they are, Len can see the tightness around his lips and eyes, the furrow in his brow, and Len knows Barry now truly understands the reality of their situation.

 

“How do you keep going out there?” he asks in a small voice but Len can sense the anger there, like an alligator hiding just below the swamp surface. It’s not anger at Len, but at his situation, and isn’t that novel?

 

“What other choice do we have?”

 

Len’s fingers are on Barry’s cheek before he realises what he’s doing. So often he’d run his fingers over Barry’s face while he was in the coma, to check if he needed to be washed or shaved or just because. He knows he can’t do this anymore, though. He’s not allowed to. The kid’s awake, he can’t just touch him. It’s creepy and invasive. He pulls his fingers away and thinks he imagines the momentary look of loss on Barry’s face.

 

Len turns away and looks at Mick as he pokes at the emerging bruise forming around his eye. Maybe he’s gotten desensitised to where they are and what they’re made to do. Maybe that’s not a bad thing.

 

“Sooner or later they’re going to make you go out there, too. You have to be ready by then.”

 

Barry washes and rinses out the cloth he’d been using to wipe Len’s forehead. “I don’t know if I will be. I haven’t been able to manage a single spark since I woke up.”

 

“We’ll make sure you are,” Len promises.

 

Mick almost knocks Barry over as he whacks him on the back when he passes. “C’mon, kid, spar with me.”

 

 

***

 

 

It’s a couple days later when it happens.

 

Len is sprawled in one of the uncomfortable chairs they’re afforded, reading a Sports Illustrated not because he wants to but because today’s guard had it and it’s better than the never-ending boredom of these four walls. Even still, he only has one eye on the articles. His other is keeping track of Mick and Barry.

 

Barry may have made no headway with his meta powers but he’s picked up fighting easily. Nothing disciplined, nothing they’d teach you for money out in the real world, just dirty, no holds barred street fighting. The kind of thing you learn to survive.

 

Barry moves with an effortless grace that he himself seems constantly and pleasantly surprised by.

 

“I remember being clumsier before the accelerator explosion,” he’d explained one day, wiping sweat from his brow with the hem of his t-shirt. Len had stared too long at the strip of skin it exposed, caught off guard by the soft jut of his hipbones. Barry noticed him staring and rubbed a hand self-consciously over his stomach. “Pretty sure I didn’t have abs either.”

 

Mick is going at him harder than usual today. Sparring is allowed under the complacency field, perhaps being viewed by their owners as just another form of exercise. Certainly Len and Mick feel no ill-will towards Barry when they fight, nor do they wish to harm him in any permanent way. Therefore, it is permissible. Why fighting is allowed but sexual urges are quashed is beyond Len, though. He could waste more time – and more pleasurably – fucking and get a decent exercise to boot.

 

But it is what it is, and so Len comforts himself by watching Barry and Mick trade blows, slowly growing sweaty, their breathes becoming ragged. It’s not a bad show.

 

What Barry lacks in raw power he makes up for in agility and speed, dodging Mick’s attacks with ease, slipping within his reach for a series of quick jabs to his solar plexus that leaves Mick doubled over and laughing breathlessly. Barry bounces back, light on his feet, a smile on his face, knowing he’s done a good job – and it’s in that moment when he feels sure in himself that Mick really attacks.

 

It’s a good lesson: never let your guard down. God knows the other metas out in the stadium won’t give him an inch. Len puts down his magazine and really focuses on the fight.

 

Barry manages to dodge the first blow by the skin of his teeth, throwing himself backwards but then he’s unsteady and down on one knee and Mick swings again and—

 

There’s a flash of lightning and Barry is gone.

 

Mick crashes to the floor in an ungainly flail of limbs and Len shoots to his feet, spinning around wildly to try to find Barry.

 

His panic is short lived; Barry’s only on the other side of the room, sprawled out on the floor, facing the wall and rubbing his head. A cursory glance Mick’s way lets Len know he can take care of himself so Len rushes to Barry’s side and helps him stand.

 

“What was that?” asks Len, turning Barry this way and that to look for any injuries.

 

Barry allows his examination with patience. “I don’t know.”

 

After a moment to steady himself, Barry waves Len away and takes a step forward only to end up on the other side of the room in the next second, leaving a trail of yellow electricity behind him. He’s managed to stop before hitting the wall this time – just – and he turns to look at Len and Mick with a mixture of excitement and alarm in his eyes.

 

“I don’t think the kid’s powers are electricity,” Mick remarks and Len hums noncommittally.

 

“No,” he concedes, “there might be a little more to it than that.”

 

“Did you see that?” asks Barry, voice full of excitement even as he takes tentative steps back towards them, looking for everything like someone walking over a barely frozen lake where cracks are starting to form. He makes it to them without any flashes of speed. “I have powers!”

 

Len reaches out and ruffles his hair. “We knew that already, kid.”

 

Barry bats his hand away, his excitement tempered. His lips turn down in a charming pout. “I know, but still—”

 

“It was very cool, Barry,” Len admits, “but we can’t let _them_ know about this. Okay?”

 

Barry looks to the door and back again. There’s lightning in his eyes so Len’s guessing he didn’t imagine that the action was a little faster than a normal human would manage it. It makes him look dangerous but Len knows the truth: there’s no one in the world who’s kinder and more good-hearted than Barry.

 

Len wishes they’d met outside when they were both free. His desire is like an itch too deep to scratch.

 

 

***

 

 

Mick and Len continue to train Barry, focussing on bringing out the side effects of his powers: the lightning. It’s how the syndicate are expecting his abilities to manifest. The speed is their ace in the sleeve, something they can pull out when it’s needed to aid them in getting out of here.

 

And it comes easier now that Barry knows which buttons to push. A strike of adrenaline brings on his speed almost like a knee jerk reaction but he can ease into it himself at will. The confines of their room curb how much they can test the limits of Barry’s powers but with as little practice as he’s had, they’re presenting alarmingly quickly and powerfully. He can move from one side of the room to the other in the blink of an eye, vibrate his body at will to move through solid objects, and is getting close to harnessing his lightning as a targeted weapon.

 

Some things suddenly make sense in context: his hummingbird pulse, his insatiable appetite.

 

They manage to get a decent idea of how his powers work and the possibilities are endless. If they can keep the syndicate blind to Barry’s speed, giving them enough of his electric side powers to keep the punters happy, then they might stand a chance of a jail break. In theory, and without the effects of the complacency field hampering him, Barry should be able to walk right through the walls and then have them miles away before anyone realises they’re gone.

 

They let the guards see enough of Barry’s powers to report back to their superiors, to let them know that their little pet is almost ready to perform. They don’t want them thinking Barry’s a bum deal or that their living arrangement is unconducive to developing his powers to be ready for the stadium.

 

It backfires on them a little, though.

 

Barry isn’t sent out to an easy fight so the syndicate can see what he can do.

 

No, all three of them are pulled out for a battle royal instead and isn’t that just Barry’s luck? His first fight and it’s an 18 man free for all. In a way, Len’s glad. At least the kid won’t be going out there alone. Maybe they can help him, protect him, keep his powers a secret a little longer.

 

The guard lets slip it’s happening the morning of when he brings them their breakfast. He, Mick and Barry share a pensive look and despite his appetite, Barry barely takes more than a few mouthfuls of his eggs. He’s quiet, too, and after so long having his voice as the background soundtrack of their days, the silence is deafening.

 

“It’s gonna be okay,” Mick says once but the acknowledgement of what is going to happen later in the day makes Barry pale and so they don’t mention it again.

 

The formal notice of the night’s proceedings comes along with their dinner and a costume for Barry. Len and Mick try to joke about the bright red leather suit and his newly given name: The Flash. Barry remains taciturn and reserved throughout, though. He only picks at his meal again and that, too, is troubling.

 

They get told to get ready not soon after.

 

They change into their costumes and Len only sneaks a brief look at Barry as he pulls the leather-looking suit up his long legs. Mick catches him staring but it’s fine – he was staring too.

 

Barry twists around, looking at himself the best he can without mirrors, and frowns. Even though his powers seem to have terraformed his body to accommodate them, Barry still sees himself as the way he was before – too lanky, too skinny, too uncoordinated. Len can’t picture it himself, but has seen the way it still affects Barry’s self-confidence.

 

“You look good,” Len can’t stop himself assuring Barry.

 

“I look like an idiot,” he says, picking at the fabric of his costume but it’s so tight it barely pulls away from his skin. “I’m too much of a beanpole to pull this off.”

 

“You look good,” Len repeats. He goes to Barry and takes the mask from his hands and gently draws it down over his head. It leaves his eyes and mouth uncovered and that’s not great but it’s better than nothing. “You have to keep this on. The only way you’re getting out of here and living a normal life is if the humans don’t see your face.”

 

Barry’s lips tick down in a frown. “I don’t like when you call them that.”

 

“Humans?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Len pats Barry on the chest where the garish lightning bolt is located and allows his hand to linger. “What else am I supposed to call them?”

 

“I don’t know. It’s just,” Barry shrugs, “I still kind of think of myself that way.”

 

Poor Barry. He never got to experience the world after the particle accelerator. Len had seen the divide, though. It had been as wide and obvious as the Grand Canyon.

 

“You are. Human, that is,” Len says, and he knows why he’s reassuring the kid but he’d never admit it out loud. “A lot of people out there can’t see it though.”

 

Mick walks by behind them and pats Barry’s shoulder perfunctorily. “People are bastards.”

 

Barry laughs, carefree and beautiful and Len can’t stop himself from smiling back. “Amen to that.”

 

 

***

 

 

As soon as Len sees Barry in the arena, he knows this is the last time he’ll fight here. There’s no way he can go back to their room after, knowing he’ll have to watch Barry go out alone next time to get pounded to a pulp. The kid’s legs are practically shaking from fear and his hands are clenched into fists. He turns wide, frightened eyes on Len as their aliases are announced and the crowd surges with excitement at the new addition.

 

Len takes note of the others in the arena with them. Their costumes make them easy to pick out and identify at least. He’s fought most of them before but there are a couple of newbies, thrown into the thick of things on their first day out, same as Barry. He and Mick probably won’t have to worry about them too much at first; it’s the old-timers with pre-existing grudges that will come for them first.

 

They’d told Barry before they’d left their room to keep behind him and Mick and use them as a shield as much as he possibly could. They’d look after him.

 

The best laid plans of mice and men, though…

 

Len loses sight of Barry when Rosa Dillon – The Top – comes after him. He knows exactly why she has a grudge against him and, to be fair, it is a legitimate one. Even before they’d got powers and been pitted against each other in the syndicate’s pit, Len had tried to kill her over a heist gone wrong and had, in fact, succeeded in killing her boyfriend.

 

She comes on with the speed and ferocity of a hurricane and it’s all Len can do to protect himself, never mind keep an eye on Barry. Avoiding eye contact is the best way to not fall prey to her vertigo-inducing powers and so that means Len has to constantly be on the move, erecting barriers and throwing ice projectiles without being able to look in Rosa’s direction and really aim in fear of being whammied. 

 

Normally he wouldn’t be so careful, but if Rosa manages to knock him out, Barry will have one less person to protect him. That can’t happen.

 

So, as tedious as it is, Len plays it safe. He doesn’t attack until he’s absolutely sure he’s safe to, having thrown powdered ice at Rosa’s face and blinded her. It’s easy to take her down after that.

 

He’s admiring the ice sculpture he’s made of her – cold enough to keep her contained but not cold enough to kill her, just how the syndicate likes it – when Len hears Barry cry out from the other end of the arena. His voice is full of fear but it’s Mick Len searches for first. When their eyes meet, they nod to each other. They know what has to be done.

 

Solomon Grundy, a giant brute of a man with no powers except superhuman strength to his name, has Barry’s throat in his hand and is about to remove Barry’s mask with the other. Mick blasts him away with a torrent of fire and Len goes to Barry where he’s collapsed bonelessly to the floor. His breath is coming way too quickly and he doesn’t even have the sense to correct his mask. It’s halfway up his face, mouth exposed and eyes blinded, and Len pulls it down gently so he doesn’t startle him.

 

“Barry, you’ve got to get your shit together.” Barry’s eyes are still wild and unfocussed and Len gives him a gentle shake. Barry’s eyes find his and he doesn’t look away. Slowly, as the sounds of the battle royale rages on around them, Barry’s breathing evens out and he sits up. “They haven’t seen you. It’s fine. It’s time to go.”

 

Barry looks up at him with dewy eyes. “I thought we weren’t going to—”

 

“I know we had a plan but it’s not gonna work. You’ve gotta do whatever I tell you.”

 

Barry only hesitates a second before he nods. “Okay.”

 

Mick gets up but Solomon Grundy isn’t going to anytime soon. The crowd loves it, loves the prospect of the three of them teaming up. Len can practically feel their excitement like a palpable vibration in the air.

 

“You got a plan?” Mick asks.

 

“Not exactly,” answers Len and isn’t that the truth. The most basic part of him wants to get Barry out of there for good but the practicalities of that still haven’t exactly sorted themselves out in his head. He trusts Mick to improvise with whatever he ends up doing but Barry’s too green and Len can’t think of anything worse than getting him hurt. “All I know is we need to get out of here.”

 

“I’m not arguing with that.”

 

Len’s keeping an eye out for anyone who thinks they can take on the three of them while also scoping for something that might be useful to escape with when the stadium is rocked by an explosion. He feels it beneath his feet, the ground lurching sickeningly, and another comes quickly upon its heels, blowing apart the stands as screams fill the air.

 

Throwing up an ice shield is instinctual at this point and the three of them shelter behind it long enough that a third blast doesn’t seem likely. As Len lets it shatter around them, they take in the chaos that has engulfed the stadium.

 

No one seems to care about the battle royale anymore. Anyone who can still stand is running for the exits, the stands clearing quickly. A lot of the guards who line the ring have opted to put their own safety first and legged it. A few still remain but they’re outgunned by the metas in the pit. Usually at the end of a fight the complacency field is thrown up so the competitors can be led out or carried away but Len feels remarkably in charge of himself. The urge to escape is an unignorable itch. The blast has freed them.

 

They don’t need to discuss it. As one, Len, Mick and Barry make for where the second explosion left a hole in the stands. No one tries to stop them.

 

They go quickly but warily. It’s almost too good to be true.

 

When they duck through broken concrete and masonry and come face to face with a small group of masked and armed individuals, it seems it is.

 

The one in front raises their gun and Len doesn’t even have time to throw up a shield or duck before it fires a blast of bullets in their direction. Barry crosses Len’s mind and he’s not sure whether it’s an appeal to the kid’s powers to save them or a lament for what could have been.

 

Len reaches for them both at the end, for Barry and Mick.

 

 

***

 

 

It takes him several moments to realise he hasn’t been shot and to register the dull thump as that of a body falling lifeless behind them. He has a death grip on Mick and Barry and they clutch back just as tightly.

 

The figure who had fired rests their gun against a cocked hip and reaches with their free hand to pull off their mask. Len feels like he’s still in shock and doesn’t quite trust what his eyes are telling him.

 

“Hey, Lenny,” Lisa says, in the exact same tone she always greets him and suddenly it’s as if the last ten months never happened.

 

“Hey,” he answers.

 

“Say hi to Cisco,” she continues, pointing at the young man next to her who’s also pulled off his mask to reveal a face maybe even younger than Barry’s. “I kidnapped him.”

 

“She kidnapped me,” echoes the man called Cisco with a goofy grin on his face that doesn’t seem in line with his situation. He looks at Lisa like she hung the stars.

 

“Hi,” Len says, too dumbstruck to think of anything else to say.

 

There’s no time to work it out now, though.

 

“C’mon,” his sister says, tugging her mask back on and turning back the way they’d come, “we’ll get you out of here.”

 

Len obeys his sister like he always does but Mick and Barry hesitate. Ultimately they trust Len, though, and he’s only a few steps ahead before they catch up – Mick with lengthy strides and Barry with his powers.

 

“You know that crazy bitch?” Mick asks as they follow Lisa’s crew through corridors that all look the same to Len. Whenever anyone comes up against them, they’re mown down in a hail of bullets, barely slowing the group down.

 

“That crazy bitch is my sister,” he answers with more than a little pride.

 

“Yeah?” Len is pleased by the awe that marks Mick’s voice. “I guess big balls run in the family then.”

 

“Hurry it up.” Lisa is ahead and waving them through into sunlight. It’s the first time Len’s seen the sun in almost eight months and it makes his eyes sting. “We gotta go.”

 

Len smirks at her as he approaches. “Missed you, sis.”

 

He catches her rolling her eyes as he passes and is surprised at the depths of fondness it elicits in him. “Yeah, yeah. Save the sappy reunion for later.”

 

There’s a few unmarked vans waiting for the group outside and Lisa and Cisco jump in the front of one of them while Len, Mick and Barry clamber into the back. As they’re careening down nameless streets, thrown against each other at every wild turn, Len turns to Mick at his side and sees the same fire in his eyes that burns in his own heart and he reaches out and pulls him forward, slamming their lips together and he tastes a hint of copper – his own blood or Mick’s, he doesn’t know – and pours seven months of frustration into the kiss.

 

It’s everything he imagined and more.

 

When he pulls away, Barry is looking glassy-eyed at the two of them, lips parted slightly in – what? Surprise? Longing? Len is hesitant to read too much into it. He knows Mick like the back of his hand, could see his own desire reflected back at him every time they were out in the arena. But Barry is new, uncatalogued and still something of an enigma. Len likes him. He’d like it if he stuck around once they were free. So he’s not going to do anything to fuck that up. He has time, all the time in the world to learn Barry.

 

It turns out he’s being too cautious, though, because before he’s even properly made the decision to play it cool, Barry is suddenly in his lap, yellow electricity sparking around him, as graceless as a newborn foal, his hands on either side of Len’s face, his lips moving insistently against Len’s own, so quick, it feels like whiplash when he pulls away and turns to reel Mick in for a kiss, still seated in Len’s lap.

 

Len watches dazedly, Barry a solid weight on his thighs, warm and real. He reaches up, hands ghosting the outline of his body, afraid to touch, afraid to hope. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Barry keeps repeating between kisses, moving from Mick to Len and back again like a hummingbird tasting nectar.

 

He calms down after a while but he doesn’t move from Len’s lap. One of Barry’s hands stays fisted in Mick’s shirt and the other comes to rest on Len’s shoulders; Len’s hands go to Barry’s hips to steady him as they careen around corners and are jostled by bumpy roads during their getaway.

 

“Can I call my sister?” Barry asks.

 

Len laughs, the first time he’s done so freely in the last eight months.

 

“Hey, Lees!” he calls, never looking away from Barry. “You got a phone?”

 

“Cisco,” he hears from the front, “give them your phone.”

 

For a kidnapped hostage, Cisco is very obliging. He does a double take when he turns around to hand over the phone and sees Barry straddling Len’s lap with a hand still fisted in the front of Mick’s costume but Len has to hand it to him – he rolls with it.

 

Barry starts dialling a number but pauses. “Where are we going? Will I be able to see her?”

 

“If she’s quick,” Cisco replies. “We’re stopping for a couple of hours at a safe house but then we’ve got to be on the move again.”

 

Cisco tells Barry the address and Barry rings his sister and passes it along.

 

“Iris and Joe will be there,” he says with absolute certainty.

 

 

***

 

 

They make it to the safe house without being followed but it’s only a matter of time before the syndicate tries to reclaim their assets. Len, Mick and Barry quickly change their costumes for normal clothing while Lisa and Cisco organise food for them. Someone Len vaguely recognises from a past heist crew drops by a load of pizzas and Barry, having skipped most of his meals that day, eats two whole ones at super speed before slowing down to start on the third.

 

Len and Mick take the three-seater couch and leave the middle spot free but Barry settles happily on the ground between them, leaning against their legs when he’s not reaching forward to snag yet another slice of pizza. Len’s not sure how this new dynamic will resolve once the dust of their escape has settled but he’s happy to enjoy it for what it is now. They can sort it out once they’re free for good.

 

A knock at the door interrupts their comfortable silence.

 

Everyone except Barry goes tense. “That’s them!” he says, springing to his feet.

 

Len rises a little slower, his old bones creaking, dead-tired now the immediate danger has passed. “It might not be. I’ll come, too.”

 

Of course that means Mick walks side by side with Len as they trail behind Barry on the way to the front door.

 

Len doesn’t expect to see a face he knows when he opens it and for a second he thinks he was right: they had been followed.

 

But then a young woman he hadn’t at first noticed rushes forward and almost knocks Barry over in her enthusiasm to get her arms around him. She must be Iris, which means…

 

“Detective _Joe_ West?” Len hazards.

 

Detective West confirms his guess with a sharp nod. “Leonard Snart. Mick Rory,” he greets them.

 

Barry turns away from his enthusiastic reunion with his sister with a frown. “You know each other?”

 

Len knew Detective West well. They’d run into each other several times throughout the years, not so much once Len had got out from under his father’s thumb and been in charge of planning his own jobs. When he’d only been a teenager, West had been kind to him but Len knew it had only been out of pity. He obviously knew Lewis, knew the influence he’d been on Len. Len had resented that pity.

 

Each time he was brought in on charges, that pity became more and more like disappointment, finally morphing into dislike until he got the exact same treatment as every other criminal the CCPD caught. Len preferred it that way.

 

“You’re a cop’s kid?” Len asks Barry and is immediately sorry for the harsh tone of accusation in his voice.

 

As expected, Barry seems to shrink into himself. He gives a guilty shrug. “I didn’t think that’d go over well so I just didn’t mention it.”

 

“He’s a CSI too,” West adds and Len can see exactly what he’s trying to accomplish.

 

He hates himself for going along with it anyway. Hates himself for asking, “You’re on the force?” as if that were a betrayal after all they’d been through.

 

“Barely!” Barry wants to touch, Len can see it in his outstretched hands, knows that for him touch is a way to comfort and not a precursor to violence as it had so often been for Len. And god help him, Len does want his touch. But he’s wound up and worried and on the defensive. He shies away when Barry takes a step closer. “I’m behind a desk most of the time.”

 

“Doesn’t matter,” Mick rumbles and his deep, rusty voice, so often unused, commands attention. At first Len thinks he’s about to escalate things and the rational part of him screams against it. But Len underestimates him. He turns to take them all in: Lisa and Cisco eavesdropping not so discretely from the living room; the girl who must be Iris a moment away from stepping in front of Barry to defend him; Detective West still standing in the doorway, posture stiff and guarded; and Len, his hackles raised like an angry cat even as he regrets every word that comes out of his mouth. “We’re all criminals now anyway.”

 

It’s amazing how easily that statement cuts through the tension in the room. It’s true and they all know it. Not a single one of them wants the legal way out of their powers and so they are, by default, criminals and whatever was in their past made no difference to that one fact.

 

“That’s true,” Len concedes.

 

“What’s going to happen now?” asks Iris, and Len sees the fiery resolve in her eyes. Barry has told them countless stories about her over the last month and Len can tell he didn’t exaggerate her qualities one bit. She’s beautiful and fierce and loyal to a fault. 

 

“We’re leaving,” he answers because that’s as much of a plan as they have at this moment. “Getting away from here until the heat dies down.”

 

She and West exchange only the briefest of looks before those steely eyes come back to Len’s and she declares, leaving no room for argument, “We’re coming too.”

 

“Like hell you are,” Len can’t help himself from trying but as soon as Barry turns pleading eyes on him he knows he’s lost this battle.

 

“Len, please.”

 

He takes a deep breath, lets it escape noisily through his nostrils before conceding. “Fine.”

 

Detective West moves out of the doorway finally and they all head for the living room, co-conspirators now in this new endeavour. “Where exactly are we headed?” West asks as he settles stiffly on a kitchen chair Cisco has helpfully moved so there’s enough room for everyone.

 

Lisa and Cisco take the loveseat, Iris settles in another of the kitchen chairs. Len and Mick resume their places on the three-seater and they all wait to see what Barry does. To his credit, he hesitates only a second with a worried look in West’s direction and then takes the space left vacant for him between Len and Mick.

 

A look flashes over West’s face but then it’s gone again, washed away like a leaf on a swollen spring river. It’s as much acceptance as they’re likely to get at this point.

 

“We’ll head north or south, doesn’t matter,” Len answers West’s previous question. “Flip a coin. As long as it’s out of America, I don’t care.”

 

As Lisa and Iris go over possible choices, both women surprisingly well-versed in refugee options for on-the-run metas, Len relaxes back into the chair by increments. It’s well past midnight and the day is catching up with him. He trusts Lisa to make the right decision for them; Iris as well because he has borrowed Barry’s all-encompassing faith in her. Barry is a warm presence against his side, Mick just on the other side of him.

 

Soon they will be safe, away from all of this.

 

“Get some sleep,” Barry whispers into his ear and Len hadn’t realised his eyes were closed until he has to open them again. “I’ll wake you when it’s time to go.”

 

“No, I’m okay,” he says and it’s so hard to fight the heaviness of his body, so hard to raise his head and scrub the tiredness from his eyes. “I’ll stay up.”

 

A gentle hand pushes him back down, not so strong he couldn’t push back against it if he wanted to.

 

“It’s my turn to keep watch,” Barry insists. Len hears the words but doesn’t see his face. His eyes have closed again. “Sleep.”

 

So Len stops fighting.

 

He sleeps.

 

 


End file.
